Text 6. Ecology is a priority

The ecological problem, which is also very much a social one, is one of the pressing problems of our days. It is closely linked, through cause and effect relations, to the problems of economic growth, progress in science and technology, natural resources, energy and food supplies. In many cases the environmental problem has become a dominant one in relation to many others.

The pollution of the environment the destruction of ecosystems, the destruction of many species of plants and animals have now reached threatening proportions. An increasing influence on nature and the application of new technological processes (whose consequences are increasingly dangerous for the environment) may cause catastrophic results. Negative anthropogenic influences threaten to disrupt nature's basic cycles and to undermine the self-regenerating capacities of the biosphere and of its individual components.

This is illustrated by the following data. By comparison with the beginning of the twentieth century the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, as well as of aerosols, has increased globally by 20 percent. As a result of the formation of a layer of carbon dioxide around the Earth which encloses it like a glass cover the threat of unfavourable changes in climate has arisen that may transform our blue planet into an enormous greenhouse during the next decades, with possibly catastrophic effects. Those include changes in its energy balance and a gradual increase in temperature that will transform fertile regions into arid ones, raise the level of water in the oceans (through the melting of polar and drifting ice) and produce a flooding of great numbers of coastal lands and cities.

These impede the vital activities and reproductive functions of individuals and cause their genetic degeneration. Calculations of researchers indicate that increases in natural background radiation by only 10 rads may lead to the birth of 6 million hereditary defective persons in each generation. Already now, according to UNO experts 10.5 percent of people are born with hereditary (genetic) defects. Data concerning deaths from cancer published by the National Cancer Institute of the US indicate that 60 percent or more of the cases are caused by various cancer producing factors іn the environment.

Text 7. Ecological situation in ukraine

Many people think of ecology as being synonymous with nature, that is, do not perceive any difference between these concepts. Instead of this, "ecology" should be understood precisely as human influence upon nature and the results of human activity upon the state of the environment.

Thus, when we speak about an ecological situation, the issue is not only and not so much about nature, as it is about what we have done and are doing to the environment, in what state it is in after our interference. The words "have done" and "interference" do not contain by themselves any obligatory negative meaning, as not every contact between man and nature is a breach of the natural balance. The character of this inevitable interrelationship depends upon the appropriateness of specific human actions affecting the environment.

By the term "ecological situation" we understand a state of the environment, with which a social subject interacts directly (or indirectly). An unfavorable ecological situation can cause a change of value orientations, and of social and demographic behaviour. A considerable deterioration of the ecological situation, which lakes place in an ecological catastrophe, can lead to socio-ecological stress – a peculiar state of mass consciousness, characterized by instability of the majority of social phenomena resulting from a loss of the control of the life situation.

Moreover, the growth of ecological risk can lead to aggravation of social tensions among various groups of the population and can lower the level of trust in structures of authority.

The general evaluation of the state of the environment is an index of the ecological consciousness of the population.

The main factors of the ecological crisis in our country are as follows: the impossibility of proper financial maintenance of environmental protection measures (necessary investment into the construction of purificative plants and the technical reequipment of industry now using obsolete machinery) because of the economic crisis, the lack of legal mechanisms for the economic regulation of natural resource utilization and of an overall economic program for Ukraine.

Even those who indicated a lack of negative changes in the ecological situation, or pointed out positive ones, testify not to the improvement of the ecological state, but about the decrease of total volume of pollutions, mainly, as a result of lowering volumes of output.

General negative estimation of the environmental state, fixed in the course of questioning, varies among different regions of Ukraine.

Thus, how do the above data coincide with objective facts concerning the ecological status in these regions?

The comparative analysis of subjective assessment of those surveyed with the real state of the environment shows that they generally coincide. In particular, the level of the anthropogenetic pressure upon nature and the corresponding indices of pollution are the highest in the Donetsk region and in Southern Ukraine. In Volyn and the Kyiv regions the negative evaluation of the state of the environment is caused, first of all, by radiological pollution after the Chernobyl accident and also by the sitting of atomic power plants there.